waking up in the chilterns

21 February 2007

On the evening of the 23rd January, I drove through snow flurries to meet with Barbara Coplans and members of the Leeds Buddhist Council. Barbara lives in a redbrick terrace in the Headingley area. After greeting Barbara, Ken and Jay (and Colin the cat) who were representing Soka Gakkai International, Dhammapala Theravada group and Leeds Jamyang centre respectively, we discussed Buddhism in Leeds and Yorkshire.

In 1998, Leeds Faith Forum had requested a Buddhist representative. As a result of this, the Leeds Buddhist Council (LBC) was established comprising:

Dhammapala (Leeds) a lay group of Harnham Vihara

FWBO (Leeds)

Jamyang (Leeds)

Dechen Community (Yorkshire)

Soka Gakkai International (Leeds)

New Kadampa Tradition (Pocklington - York)

Leeds Zen Group

International Zen Association UK (Leeds)

Buddhist Hospice Trust

One of the LBC, Jan Metcalfe, has until recently been very active on interfaith bodies. Barbara, the LBC Secretary, has also been similarly active. This sparked a discussion about Buddhist involvement in interfaith and SACRE groups. The general feeling was somewhat cynical. The intentions behind interfaith activity are invariably good; the problem is that such bodies rarely seem to achieve anything and absorb a lot of energy. Buddhists are usually working people with responsibilities and with little spare time. Such spare time as they have is usually taken with voluntary Buddhist activity and household and family commitments. There is often the feeling that a lot of precious time can easily be wasted in conscientiously attending interfaith meetings.

From my own experience, SACRE’s in particular are dominated by Christian traditions, and representatives from the smaller faiths often feel that they are present simply ‘to put a tick in the box’ rather than being encouraged to contribute in a significant way (or at all). SACRE’s are composed of six Christian representatives from the major denominations and one representative each from Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem and Sikh faiths. There are in addition some eight teachers and nine councillors and local authority representatives.

The majority of teacher and local authority representatives are also of a conservative Christian orientation. The end result is that any representative of the minority faiths is greatly outnumbered and usually ends up being little more than an uncomfortable observer. The RE Curriculum is also heavily weighted towards Christianity with minimal time given to other faiths, and this sits within legislation that requires schools to undertake regular Christian acts of worship. Perhaps it is reasonable to ask whether it is worth attending such meetings?

Barbara observed that it was the ‘same old, same olds’ who attended interfaith and SACRE meetings. She also noted that interfaith meetings seemed to operate on a stimulus /response basis; ie a particular problem was perceived by a faith group and reported at an interfaith meeting. A response to this problem or crisis was then sought. In between such ‘flare ups’, not much happened. However, perhaps on a more positive note, an agreement had been implemented to have multi-faith winter lights in Leeds.

Does any reader of this report have any positive and upbeat experiences of Buddhist contributions to interfaith and SACRE's around the UK? I would like to have some evidence to counter my curmudgeonly outlook.

Intra Buddhist relations in Leeds and Yorkshire are pretty good, with a joint Wesak celebration and communal meal. Some groups were more active in the LBC than others; the NKT seemed to be the most reluctant to contribute their time.

I mentioned an idea of the NBO organising a Yorkshire or Leeds regional Buddhist conference in partnership with LBC, to act as a focus for community buidling, and perhaps hopefully making this an annual event. Barbara and those present thought this a good idea, with Jay Simpson suggesting that Leeds Town Hall could be available (for free) for such an activity. Leeds University was also mentioned as a possible venue. Barbara thought the theme of ‘British Buddhism’, or ‘What is British Buddhism?’ would be a good one. The conference would be for one day and probably between 10am – 4pm. The details remain to be worked out.

I was very grateful to Barbara and the LBC for organising a meeting with me and I found the discussion very helpful.